


the becoming of something

by DefineSane, youngavengersbigbang



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, a sexual encounter was initiated without certain info being shared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:10:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefineSane/pseuds/DefineSane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngavengersbigbang/pseuds/youngavengersbigbang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through a strange turn of events, Tommy finds himself entwined in Billy’s sex life. This is how he stays there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the becoming of something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carliscrazy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Carliscrazy).



> **Warnings/Triggers:** Pseudo-incest
> 
>  **Notes:** Shamelessly unbeta’d. Okay, there’s a little bit of shame, this one could have used a beta. Prepare for emotionally fraught orgasms.

Tommy hadn’t meant to walk in on Teddy and Billy—the door had been partially open after all, so it wasn’t _really_ his fault—but that didn’t stop him from seeing the scramble of gangly teenaged limbs searching for a blanket that had long ago fallen to the floor.

Tommy stood frozen in the doorway, not knowing whether it would be more awkward to stand there and look away as his sort-of-not-really-twin and Teddy made themselves decent, or to high-tail it out of there like the admittedly shocked delicate flower he was. Given his particular talents, it’s not difficult to guess which option he embraced.

Back in the cramped room he had rented for the week, he tried to catch his breath, which had not been taken by the rush away from Billy’s house, but by something he deemed much more sinister. 

Attraction is a tricky thing, he thought, and fell into bed with his clothes and shoes still on.

Sometimes Tommy imagined never living in one place, simply running around the world every night and napping in between steps. He didn’t fit in this room, he didn’t fit in this group or this city or this life, and if he wasn’t a teenager he would think his own existential crisis was the first to ever happen—he was special after all—but he wasn’t that egocentric yet. He knew the melancholy that had fallen over him would pass.

“Tommy—“ he heard Billy saying, ringing in his ears months after the fact while sitting in his tiny room and dreading whatever his mind would conjure up in the mood he was in that evening.

“How fast are you exactly?” Billy had asked. Tommy had always been special, but that wasn’t always a good thing. His mind touched on, and flinched away from, the memory of darkened prison cells and the sniffles of all the other special snowflakes. His mind circled like crows.

Billy couldn’t love someone like that; he had Teddy, perfect and warm, to lean his head against. He had brothers already, two brats just as familial as Tommy was special and apart. There were too many Avengers already, much less young ones, and Tommy felt so old sometimes. Billy would never love him like he loved everyone else, brothers or not. Tommy simply did not belong.

And there it was again, the fact that attraction is a tricky thing, and Tommy didn’t even know what he wanted, but he knew it made him different.

In his more self-reflective moments, Tommy questioned his mild attraction to Teddy—and then there was his intense, unmoving attraction to Billy. He didn’t like to think about that second one much. Teddy was one thing—bright and soft, an ideal in some ways, the definitive nice guy—but Billy. Well. Billy looked exactly like Tommy and he was sheltered in a way Tommy had a hard time grasping and he didn’t seem to like Tommy very much at all.

Tommy really had no excuse. None at all.

Billy loved Teddy more than anything, and that emotion was fascinating to him, if only because it gave the illusion of purity, of a love stronger than anything. Things don’t actually work that way, but it was a pleasant delusion, and one that Tommy thought about in a vague, floaty way every day. Maybe he was just in love with their relationship. He sat in bed all night trying not to think of that relationship. He had worse problems to contend with.

-

Only a few days later, Tommy’s phone rang as he walked, the slow way, through the streets of New York. He answered before it rang a second time, not bothering to look at the caller ID; there were only so many people that had his cell number and most of them were Young Avengers, so there was always the possibility of an emergency.

“Hey. Tommy. Hi.”

“Uh-huuuh, hi, Billy.” Tommy left off the _what do you want_ that was floating around his head. Be nice, just be polite, don’t be a smartass. He hadn’t seen Billy since the incident with the impromptu peepshow, and he didn’t want to give the wrong impression about his reaction to it.

“Hi. Um. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go ahead, then. I don’t have all day, man.” _Nice! Be nice!_

“Iwaswonderingifyoucouldgowithmetobuycondoms.”

“What.” All at once, Tommy became aware of all the people around him. The phone went very hot against the line of his jaw and he switched it to his other ear before realizing it wasn’t the phone that was warming up. 

“I. Every time I go into the store the lady at the counter eyes me.”

“Uh.”

“Please, Tommy, it’ll take five minutes tops. I just need someone to back me up. This will make you the best brother ever.”

It shouldn’t have made a difference—the comment was a tone-lightener more than a serious offer of acceptance—and Tommy knew that. But then he thought about some of the rougher days of his adolescence and the sensory memory of sitting on something unforgivably firm—cement, a poorly made mattress?—while he thought about his family. Family was something he dreamt about. It was a foreign concept, exotic and alluring.

Too long had passed since Billy’s remark.

“I already am,” Tommy said with the lightest of give to his voice. He switched the phone to his other ear again. “Text me the address, I’ll meet you there.”

Tommy was already kicking himself before he got the text. He felt needy, even though it had been Billy that had asked for help, and he felt like he was taking advantage of some implicit trust that he wouldn’t sexualize any situation with Billy. Because the thought kept floating through him, vague and punishing, that he could pretend he was together with Billy, stocking up for nighttime exploits. How pathetic.

When Tommy stopped outside the convenience store—which Tommy noted was far away from Billy’s neighborhood—Billy was already lurking shiftily at the side of the building. Tommy waved at him to follow, with only a brusque, “C’mon, let’s get this over with,” as a greeting.

He couldn’t imagine why Billy would want Tommy to have anything to do with his sex life, except maybe he gave off the vibe of being more promiscuous than he actually was. That didn’t explain why Billy was so embarrassed to be buying condoms to the point of asking Tommy for help, unless he had some sort of virgin-bride thing going on. A whole new level of damning curiosity invaded Tommy thoughts, and he tried not to look at Billy as he grabbed a shopping basket and they made their way through the store, which was thankfully clear of people.

Tommy thought of the incident just days before, walking in on the two of them fooling around. Their underwear had still been on, but that didn’t mean it stayed that way.

“Have you had sex before?” _Shut up, Tommy. Shut your goddamn mouth._

“Have you?” Billy shot back, embarrassment clear on his reddening face. 

“Once.” It had been a shitty experience, and judging by Billy reaction to his tone, that was pretty obvious. “Anyways, why aren’t you here with Teddy?”

“He, uh, doesn’t know that I’m buying them. They’re just in case.”

No to the sex, then. Tommy wanted to kick himself for bringing it up. The line between buying condoms together and discussing one’s sex life was a thin one, apparently.

“So you haven’t… talked about it?” Tommy continued. Billy’s eyes widened comically. 

“Oh, god, no.”

An announcement about sales on dog treats blared out of the speaker system, and the two boys paused simultaneously as though they had been caught guilty of some undisclosed crime.

“Hey, um, is everything alright between you two?” Tommy hated himself for asking, but this whole conversation wasn’t doing wonders for his self-esteem in the first place.

“Everything is fine, it’s perfect. Why would you ask?” Billy side-eyed him and something clicked into place. “You think I’m planning to cheat on him.”

“I never said that.”

“But you thought it, didn’t you.”

“Does it really matter? Whatever. There’re the condoms, have at.” Tommy gestured at the isle without walking into it, and nearly groaned when Billy looked down it and turned back to him with panic in his stupid, wide eyes.

“Um,” Billy muttered. “What kind do I get? I didn’t think this far ahead.”

“Don’t you have a computer? With google?” Tommy glanced down the aisle and tried not to think about how similar he and Billy looked and what people would think about that if they were seen buying condoms together. The thought kept drilling its way back into his head, though.

“Yeah, but it’s not like I sit around googling types of condoms. I figured there would be less of a selection. What kind do you think I should get?”

Tommy rubbed at his eyes in frustration. “It depends on what you’re using them for.”

Billy was beginning to blush bright red and it was distracting as hell.

“Um,” Billy replied.

Tommy shook his head and grabbed two different boxes. He held the unlubricated kind up. “These are for blowjobs.” He tossed that one in the basket. He held up the other box, lubricated this time, thought better of it, and grabbed a bottle of lube to hold up with it. “These are for everything else.” He tossed those in the basket, too, and felt the inexplicable urge to wipe off his hands. He stuck them both in his pockets. Freak out later, normal now. Deep breath. Stop thinking about it.

“Okay, done. I’ll wait out in the parking lot.”

“No!” Billy panicked. “I mean, please, go through checkout with me. This store doesn’t have self-checkout.”

Tommy was well aware of that, and it was the primary reason for not wanting to stand next to Billy as he bought condoms to use with his boyfriend who was not Tommy; too much emotional distress with little payoff.

Brothers don’t buy condoms together. Or maybe they do. Tommy wasn’t really sure once he thought about it, maybe brothers do things like that all the time, maybe it was a bonding experience. Maybe they didn’t even count as brothers. Maybe he was overthinking it. Deep breath.

“Okay, fine, let’s get out of here.”

As they stepped into the checkout line, Billy held the shopping basket with his arm awkwardly thrown across the top so the view inside was obscured. Tommy shook his head. He understood the urge—he was feeling like he’d like people not to see that he was with Billy right then, for instance—but in the end Billy was doing nothing but drawing more attention to himself.

“If you act like you’ve done this a million times, the cashier won’t even blink at you,” Tommy advised. After only a moment’s hesitation, Billy followed his advice by straightening his spine and forcing a bored expression on his face. His eyes still darted from side to side, but it was better.

They got through the line in no time, the cashier just as oblivious as Tommy had said he would be, and were soon out in the fresh air again. 

“I’m sorry. About in there.” Billy jerked his head towards the convenience store. “I panicked.”

“Which bit are you talking about?”

“The whole thing, I guess.” Billy laughed, the sound much lighter now that their little expedition was over. “Hey, do you want to hang out or something? We could go get some food.”

Tommy opened his mouth to answer, to turn down the invitation, but.

 _What about Teddy?_ Of course Billy hadn’t meant it that way, it wasn’t going to be a date, it would probably just be them sitting in an uncomfortable silence in between trying to make excruciating small talk.

“Yeah, sure,” was what he said instead of no.

After a brief back and forth over the merits of different foods, they finally settled on a coffee shop—of the non-Starbucks variety—as a neutral place to grab a bite, as it had both sandwiches (for Billy) and cake (for Tommy). The chairs smelled of flavored sugar syrups, the scent so thick in the air it had embedded itself in the beige and brown striped fabric. The café was mostly empty, too late in the day for the lunch crowd and not late enough for those getting off work. They picked a table in the far corner, out of the range of hearing of anyone there, and sat down. They were both quiet as they started eating, but Tommy, with cringe-inducing self-consciousness, had at least one thing he wanted to say before he spoiled whatever newfound camaraderie was between them.

“I.” Tommy couldn’t get past the first word. It sounded stupid in his head, and he could only imagine how it sounded out loud. “I don’t know how to be friends with you.”

“Ouch,” Billy winced. “I know we don’t have much in common, but it’s not like one of us is a Martian. Although if that was the case, you would be the alien.”

“Oh, you wish, space-case. Whatever. Never mind.” Tommy didn’t have the heart to tell Billy that he had actually been attempting some kind of preemptive warning about his social skills, and Billy seemed ignorant of the self-conscious concerns that Tommy didn’t really want to talk about anyways. So he let it drop. Instead, he brought a bite of chocolate cake to his mouth and gulped it down without tasting it.

He cleared his throat, then paused as a thought occurred to him.

“Wait a second,” Tommy scowled. “Couldn’t you have just magic-ed up some condoms? Or magic-ed yourself immune to everything?”

“Uh-huh. Because the constant muttering is such a turn-on. And magically materialized condoms are set to be approved by the FDA and CDC any day now.”

“Anyways, I doubt you guys will catch anything from each other. Did the topic even come up with Teddy or did you brainstorm the necessity of this all on your own?”

“We haven’t talked about it,” Billy muttered into his sandwich.

“Why do you seem to have no trouble talking to me about all your sexual stuff going on, but talking to Teddy about it is a completely ridiculous idea? He’s the one you’re having sex with.”

“Almost! Almost having sex with!”

“So fucking what. The guy you are thinking about having sex with,” Tommy clarified with an eye-roll.

“I just,” Billy said, eyebrow pulling together. “I just find it easier to talk to you. I don’t know why.” A weak smile crossed his face. “Bros, right?”

Tommy shook his head, thinking this whole conversation was an utter disaster, but he said, “Yeah, bros. Whatever.”

They finished their food, and as they walked out Tommy took the rarely appealing path of the moral high ground.

“I think you should talk to Teddy.” He felt a flush rising in him and tried to tamp it down. “About the condoms, and sex, and whatever else might be going on that you’re not telling me. Because it’s important.” He winced at his own awkwardness. “I mean, it’ll bite you in the ass if you don’t. In a bad way.”

“I’ll think about it.” With a shift from one foot to the other and a shrugging kind of breath, Billy toyed with the stringy bits of plastic coming off the top of his convenience store bag. “Thank you, Tommy.”

Billy’s eyes blinked shut and he threw his arms wide for a bear hug that Tommy reluctantly consented to.

“You’re welcome, dude. And I’m never doing that again.”

“You know, if you ever need the company on a similar trip, I’m here for you,” Billy joked.

“Heh. Unlikely.”

“Oh, come on,” Billy protested. “I provide great emotional support. I would be the best company for a condoms run.”

“I wasn’t doubting your abilities, Billy, I was doubting the necessity.”

“Oh.”

Tommy felt like he was venturing too close to curiosity to be safe, so he opened his mouth to say goodbye.

“You do that a lot, you know,” Billy said before Tommy could talk. “You say things about yourself as though it should be obvious, but you never talk about it.”

“There’s not much to say. I’m an open book.” Tommy spread his arms out Vanna White style, as though presenting himself. Billy shook his head, but there was a small smile on his mouth. 

They strolled to the street corner without a word, then Billy flashed a goofy smile, one small dimple showing on his left cheek. He dipped into a deep bow, one dapper arm thrown out to the side. “It has been a pleasure, Master Thomas.”

“Nerd.”

-

Kate Bishop should have known better than to invite Billy to a party that served drinks stronger than Sprite. The kid was sheltered like crazy at home, and in Tommy’s experience those were always the people that broke out of their boundaries in a bad way when given the chance. Billy hadn’t had the chance yet to learn moderation.

Kate had invited Tommy to the party, too, but some nights Tommy really did not want to deal with the rich kids of New York getting drunk, so he had declined. He hadn’t known the whole gang had been invited, or he might have gone—he didn’t find out until the late hours of the evening when he got a call from Kate letting him know that Billy had left the building without Teddy and was a fair bit past tipsy. Just an FYI, she had said, but Tommy suspected she knew he would take it as more than that, and he sped right down to the block Kate lived on to see Billy turning the corner.

Then Tommy spent twenty minutes following his aimless wandering.

Billy stumbled around for a while longer, not exactly looking alright, but looking well enough that Tommy didn’t want to risk exposing his evening spent as Billy’s shadow. He wasn’t stalking him, anyways, since he hadn’t meant to follow him. Unless that’s what all stalkers said? Maybe quiet following was the gateway drug of stalking, and protecting Billy (from himself mostly) was just a convenient excuse he could use so he wouldn’t question his own deviance.

Billy slumped into a park bench, tipping forward far enough that Tommy hesitated for only a second before he was there to help him, hand on Billy’s shoulder and eyes trying to avoid the dim recognition in Billy’s eyes. Billy’s mouth squirmed through a semblance of a smile and right into something Tommy couldn’t place an emotion for, but did not like one bit.

“Oh, man.” Billy slurred. “I think I’m drunk.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Billy. Go home to Teddy.”

“I’m too drunk to go home to Teddy. He doesn’t want me.” Billy whole face occupied itself with a frown, from chin to hairline. “I’m too drunk,” he repeated.

Tommy sighed and resigned himself to babysitting for the evening. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do, and it would be irresponsible of him if he just let Billy wander along in the state he was in. He was just being responsible. Tommy dragged a seat from farther down the bar to where Billy sat, struggling against the crowds of people.

“Was it worth it?” Tommy questioned.

“My head hurts,” Billy said in lieu of a linear response. “Hey, why’re you here?”

A crease formed in Billy’s brow, his confusion only multiplied by the effects of the alcohol. Tommy always knew that Billy would be a lightweight—for that matter, so was Tommy, since they weighed about the same—but it was frustrating to actually have to deal with it.

“I followed you,” Tommy answered. He figured that was close enough to the truth, and Billy would probably take it as a joke and move on.

“Yeah,” Billy said, tranquil. “I followed you to the park the other day.”

“Wait, you what?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was going to your apartment to say hi. I wanted to hang out.” Tommy could see right through the lie, but he didn’t call him out on it yet. “You were walking out, and I just… I just followed. You’re not mad, are you?”

“I’m more curious as to why you would want to voluntarily spend more time with me.” And a bit thrilled, if he was honest with himself.

“I like you,” Billy said with a big, sloppy smile. Tommy’s heart hesitated for a moment and then started pounding like a gallon of adrenaline had been poured into his veins.

“You say that now, but I bet it would be a different story if you were sober.” Tommy spotted Billy’s phone on the bench next to him, dangling between two slats, and snatched it before it could fall.

He texted Billy’s parents to say he was spending the night at Tommy’s, but didn’t give a reason why or say that it wasn’t Billy talking, and less than a minute later got a concise approval from both of them. Then Tommy paused, watching Billy wrap his arms around his stomach and grimace gloomily. Tommy steeled himself, then opened a new text for Teddy and sent him the same terse message.

“Alright, up and at ‘em, moron.” Tommy extended a hand to help Billy get up from the bench, but Billy made a wild grab and got his wrist instead, making Tommy sigh. Billy seemed to catch sight of Tommy’s other hand as they started walking, blinking confusedly at the shape in it.

“Hey, that’s my phone,” Billy protested. A sarcastic response about stating the obvious was right on the tip of Tommy’s tongue, but it had been a long day, and he wanted to curl up in his bed and go to sleep, not argue with an impaired person.

“Yup,” Tommy said.

“Give it back,” Billy pouted like a five-year-old, which was definitely off-putting and annoying, though Tommy had the urge to take a picture to remember the ridiculousness of the moment.

Instead, they stopped walking so Billy could grab his phone and click through his sent messages with quicker reflexes than Tommy would have expected for how drunk he was. And then he blinked and drew in an even quicker breath, and Tommy wondered if maybe a word in the texts had autocorrected as something dirty.

“Did you send these?” Billy asked, even though Tommy clearly had.

“Yeah, I didn’t want them to worry.”

Billy nodded, but still looked nervous as he started clicking away at the phone. Tommy shifted in his seat, suddenly and inexplicably uncomfortable.

The phone went off in Billy’s hands in the middle of whatever he was typing, and he mechanically clicked over to that window before freezing.

“Oh.” A mixture of emotions crossed over Billy’s eyes, weirdness at the forefront, confusion sticky along his eyelids, worry running through it all. Billy looked spooked by whatever was in the message.

“Is something wrong?” _Besides this entire evening?_

“No. I don’t think so.” Billy swayed a bit. “I think I need to sit down.”

Before Billy could stumble, Tommy put a steadying arm around his waist. Billy slumped into him hard, nearly all his weight on Tommy, and turned into his side. Sort of like how a kitten would bat his head against your hand, only into Tommy’s shoulder.

“I think Teddy’s angry at me,” Billy whispered like it was a secret.

“Well, you are exceptionally drunk, and that tends to irritate people.” 

“That’s not it.”

“What was in that text? He couldn’t be that angry. It is Teddy we’re talking about.”

Billy blinked. “Maybe he’s not, then.” Rather than being comforting, the thought seemed to add to Billy’s disquiet.

Tommy bumped him on the shoulder. “Are you sure everything’s alright?”

The only response Billy gave in return was a cringe away from the contact and guilty grimace. Encouraging for their supposed friendship.

“Can you help me get back to my apartment?” Billy requested with subdued body language.

“Yeah, of course. What are friends for?”

When Tommy finally got Billy back to his apartment, it was getting to be AM hours and he didn’t expect anyone to show up at the door when he made a bit of a racket fumbling Billy’s keys after an awkward moment of trying to get them out of his pocket without Billy freaking out on him. Nonetheless, the door opened before he even got the key in the lock, and Teddy evaluated the two of them with evident surprise.

Tommy made a _what can I say?_ gesture and threw in a long-suffering eye-roll for good measure. He had nothing to feel guilty about, of course, he was just helping his brother out. Being friendly. Tommy couldn’t meet Teddy’s eyes.

They worked in silence to get the practically unconscious Billy tucked into bed. He had Captain America sheets on his bed.

To Tommy’s surprise, Teddy walked him all the way out of the building, an incomprehensible expression on his face. Tommy waited for him to say something.

“He likes you a lot, you know,” Teddy said into the silence. Tommy swallowed, tried to think of a response, and eventually settled for nodding.

Teddy’s mouth twisted at one side, a half-frown.

“He worries about you,” Teddy continued, seemingly without meaning to.

“He can speak for himself,” Tommy snapped, and immediately regretted it. Teddy was just trying to be nice.

“Yeah, but just in case he hasn’t said it, you were kind of looking like you needed to hear it.”

And wasn’t that just perfect? Tommy was not only needy, he was obviously needy.

“We’re both here for you, y’know, if you need anything,” Teddy continued.

Tommy forced a nod and walked away with only a curt “bye.” 

Half an hour after Tommy left Teddy he got a text from Billy’s number asking to hang out at his house the next night. Tommy had thought he would have passed out long before that, he was most of the way there when he left, but Teddy had no reason to send a text like that from Billy’s phone, so he thought nothing more of it and texted back an affirmative. 

-

“My parents are out of town,” Billy said out of nowhere. The planned visit to Billy’s apartment had ended up being nothing but a movie night invitation. Teddy wasn’t there, which had surprised Tommy initially, but the guy had a life outside Billy, after all. They had popcorn, soda, and chips on the nightstand and the TV reflected blue on Billy’s face, the same shade as his magic. His tone had been neutral, almost offhand if not for the intentness with which he continued to stare at the screen.

“Very smooth. That sounds like a bad pick-up line from a teen romantic comedy.”

“Yeah?” Billy’s stare slid to the side to barely meet Tommy’s own.

“Uh.” Tommy could feel his face itching under the intensity of Billy’s attention, and his open expression, and his hand reaching out between them like an errant car in traffic poised for the inevitable crash. Billy’s fingertips found Tommy’s jaw and he was so befuddled by the gesture that his heart pounded away in his head and his chest without supplying enough oxygen to attach a meaning to the touch of Billy’s hand—his hand—right there below his eye resting on his cheekbone.

He blanked out for a minute, like he was running so quickly that the time between point A and B seemed to disappear. Next thing he knew Billy’s mouth—his _mouth_ —fell on Tommy’s with the ease of a misunderstanding. Mouths, and hands, and Billy’s shoulder under his hand, and Billy’s thigh thrown over his lap, and Billy’s hand under Tommy’s shirt scratching at his ribs in what seemed like a comforting gesture, but just threw everything into a more discordant light.

The situation was spinning wildly out of Tommy’s control faster than he could have expected, had he known this was coming. Should he have known this was coming?

Billy started to undo the fly of Tommy’s jeans, and all Tommy could do in response was gasp into Billy’s mouth, wet and needy. Billy slithered down, each inch accompanied by a drag somewhere sensitive on Tommy’s skin, and by the time he kneeled between Tommy’s knees he had taken his jeans down with him, leaving just Tommy’s boxers in place.

This was the point at which everything that had previously seemed to spill forward suddenly halted, a breath frozen in Tommy’s throat, and the thought in his brain that maybe wanting something so badly you couldn’t even talk about it or think it too often to yourself would magically make it so if you wished hard enough. Tommy couldn’t remember what the last thing Billy had said was, and he was afraid to ask why in case he broke the moment. Billy’s eyes flicked up to meet Tommy’s, and he didn’t look nearly as nervous as Tommy felt.

Tommy closed his eyes, wondering why he couldn’t be a better person, but Billy was heedless as he tapped his fingers against the outsides of Tommy’s thighs and nudged his knees farther apart with his elbows.

Then the boxers came down and Tommy pushed up, and Billy pinned his hips with the fleshy part of his hands before diving forward and immediately choking on the amount of Tommy’s dick he had intended to shove down his throat. A gentle gagging sensation rose in Tommy’s throat in sympathy, and his hands which had been numbly pressing into the bed finally came up to cup behind Billy’s ears. The skin was soft there, and Billy’s hair felt even softer on Tommy’s fingers. He gasped because he couldn’t stand to hold the air back any longer, and began to slip down the stack of pillows he had been cushioned on as Billy tried again and again to execute a successful blowjob. They eventually both settled flat on the bed with Billy hunched over Tommy. He bent up for a moment to lick across Tommy’s stomach where his shirt had ridden up, and the sensation was sticky and ticklish and sexy. He wanted to kiss Billy again but didn’t know if he could speak, much less ask for that. Billy mouthed at the crease between his dick and his thigh before sucking just the tip into his mouth this time.

A piercing jingle jarred them both, and the ringing phone was just too much—Tommy could pretend it was only them in the world for just as long as it took someone else to interrupt, and then he felt himself firmly drawn back to reality. He reached down to signal Billy to stop, to gesture at the phone for him on the off chance he had missed the cheery sound of his ringtone, but Billy just replaced his mouth with a hand and grabbed at the phone with his other.

“Hello? Teddy?” Billy sounded completely normal, not even out of breath. He didn’t sound guilty or preoccupied. Tommy needed to reevaluate his opinion on Billy’s relative innocence, because if his ability to act as though nothing was going on was anything to go by, he could be lying all the time and Tommy would never have noticed.

Billy sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and Tommy had to make a concerted effort to be quiet so Teddy wouldn’t hear him. His stomach turned.

Billy rolled his eyes with an affectionate grin.

“I’m having sex with Tommy right now, can I call you back?”

Tommy choked on his own spit, coughing violently in the wake of Billy’s admission. Oh, God. Was Teddy going to kill him? Or worse, would he break up the group? Was Tommy less looking forward to the disappointment or the anger on Teddy’s face?

Billy hesitated, then winced, and Tommy wasn’t much for hysterics, but Billy was still stroking his hand across his dick and a person could only take so much before he breaks. Arousal pulsed through Tommy stronger, making everything feel raw and terrible and wonderful all at once. He threw his head back against the bed, no longer able to watch Billy, eyes glued to the ceiling and trying to think through the haze of illicit pleasure.

“No, I forgot,” Billy said as he squeezed Tommy’s dick a bit tighter. Tommy’s eyes rolled up into his head unbidden. Were there some crossed wires? Tommy felt simultaneously aroused and revolted, and he couldn’t decide which feeling he wanted more of.

“I was in the middle of a blowjob, do you think it matters at this point?” Billy paused again, and Tommy could hear the faint mumble of a response on the other end.

“I would have if… Yeah, okay, I will. I love you. Talk to you later.” Billy clicked the end call button and threw an apologetic smile Tommy’s way as he climbed off of his legs.

“Forgot the condoms,” Billy explained, as though that explained anything. He started digging around in his bedside table, scooping a bunch of books out of the drawer before emerging triumphantly with one of the boxes of condoms he had bought with Tommy—the lubricated ones, Tommy noted with a void-like curiosity, the box already open. He snatched a corner of the blanket up from the edge of the bed and tucked it over his lap. 

“What?” Tommy asked, muddled mind perplexed at Billy’s nonchalance.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but you said you’d been with someone else before, so I figured better safe than—“

“What?”

“—Sorry. Are you alright? We can stop.”

“No, I mean, what? Teddy?” Tommy’s voice broke like he was five years younger. “He knows?”

Tommy saw the moment it clicked with Billy what was going on, and he tried not to feel like he had somehow been duped.

“Oh, my God,” Billy blurted. “I’m sorry, I meant to tell you, I just, we started, and then I, I got distracted. Teddy knows what we’re doing, we talked about it. I took your advice and we talked things out, and it came up that I wanted, uh, y’know, and he said he was alright with it. Everything’s good with us, in fact it’s never been better.”

“You fucking asshole,” Tommy snarled. “You asshole. I was feeling terrible. Oh, man, we almost—and I thought you were cheating on him! Oh, man.”

Billy grimaced, causing his nose to wrinkle, which Tommy tried not to find endearing through his anger.

“You were going to sleep with me, and you thought I was cheating with you? Wow, low standards, dude.”

“Jesus Christ, I didn’t know!” Tommy dropped his head into his hands, but he couldn’t stop shaking. “Oh, man. This was a bad idea, I should leave. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Oh,” Billy said, his shoulders drooping. His eyes flickered down to Tommy’s crotch and the evident bump in the blanket. “I could just…”

Billy made an obscene gesture and Tommy made a horrified sound as he scrambled off the bed and back into all his clothes. His hands refused to cooperate on his shoelaces, so he stomped on the back of them so he could get out of the building as quickly as possible.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered before he whipped the door shut behind him, but not fast enough that he didn’t hear Billy begging him not to leave yet, and God, he wanted to get out of there, but he paused and heard the panic in Billy’s voice and the door behind him snapping open and instead of leaving he ducked into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

He was still painfully aroused, the zipper of his jeans pressing hard against his erection, and he couldn’t think. Confusion mingled with whatever endorphins were running through his system to send a tangled slurry of emotions through Tommy’s system even as he carefully, urgently unbuttoned his jeans and yanked them down his thighs. He started jerking off, a sob perched on his lips, and hoped it would be over quickly so be could go back to being able to reason through this whole mess of a situation. He thought of Billy and he could feel himself getting closer.

"Tommy?" Billy called from outside the door. "Are you alright?"

Tommy let out an undignified noise and hunched over a little farther. His legs were spread wide to balance himself on the closed toilet seat, and one twitching foot caught the waste paper basket and knocked it over.

"Give me a minute," Tommy responded hoarsely.

"You could have told me to stop. I understand, you didn't have to leave the room."

"I did," Tommy whispered, and hoped Billy couldn't hear that or any of his other sounds through the door. "I did need to leave."

Billy was quiet for a minute and Tommy got closer and closer—he jerked a little harder. Any time now.

"Why?"

"Because I was about to come."

Another pause, shorter this time.

"And now?"

"Still about to come."

"Will you get out here so I can help you with that?"

"No. Can't."

“Can we just talk about this? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it’s all fine.” He waited for a minute, maybe waiting for a reply from Tommy, but no words were forthcoming. "Do you... Do you want me to talk dirty or something?"

Tommy couldn't picture it, had no idea what Billy would have come up with if he had said yes, but he didn't need to find out because the offer was enough to white out his vision, orgasm rushing through him from somewhere near the nauseous lump in the bottom of his stomach, and his muscles uncoiled to slump forward all at once.

Getting his jeans back up his hips was more difficult than it should have been. His fingers felt clumsy and his skin felt oversensitive to the rough fabric. Silence reigned over the bathroom, and Tommy leaned his ear against the door for just a moment before opening it, hoping the quiet meant that Billy had gone back to his room. Instead, he was waiting outside the door, looking thoroughly debauched.

"Better?" he asked.

_Mortified._

“I’m going home.”

-

Tommy woke up hard the next day, and for the first time in years he found himself conflicted about what to do about it. He wanted to jack off and get it over with—the thought appealed less than he thought it should—but as soon as his hand went under the tight elastic band of his underwear his mind went to Billy and Teddy and he didn’t think he could continue. Every touch brought him back to a memory of them, and he felt weirdly displaced.

Eventually he just wanted to get off so bad that he didn’t care anymore, and he thought of that time he had seen Teddy copping a feel of Billy’s ass when they were kissing after taking down a baddie. Then he thought of seeing Billy with only his briefs on, just the outline of Teddy underneath him, and the motion they made as Teddy flexed under him to get to the blanket. Shame had kept Tommy from unearthing the memory before, blurring the details from the fantasy, but with Tommy on the edge of coming that just made it hotter.

He got distracted wondering if he was imagining himself as Teddy or Billy or as someone watching them. None of them felt quite right, and all he really knew was that he was going to come any second. It was a familiar sensation, and he tried not to think about it.

The morning didn’t improve much after that, and the few offerings his room had were not enough to keep him occupied. He figured he would get out of his apartment for a while, maybe go see Kate. It was a nice day out, an uncommonly warm, breezy day in fact. Maybe he’d leave the city altogether, go down to Florida and spend a day at the beach.

What he didn’t expect to do was bump into Teddy on his way out. He didn’t know Teddy had his address, much less the inclination to go see him.

“Billy feels really bad about what happened,” Teddy said. His hand was heavy on Tommy’s shoulder, but he felt too guilty to shrug it off, so they both stood awkwardly in front of the apartment building.

“He shouldn’t,” Tommy said. “Did he… did he tell you what happened?”

“Yeah, we talked about it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I was going to let him cheat on you,” Tommy argued. He kept his voice down, though no people were on that block. “Does it really matter that it wasn’t actually like that?”

Teddy shook his head, not like he was agreeing with the assessment of the situation as splitting hairs, but a general refutation.

“No one but you is making judgments on what happened.”

Tommy scoffed, the scowl on his face intended more for himself than Teddy.

“I really like you, Teddy. I don’t want to be that guy that fucks you over. So maybe me and Billy getting involved is not such a great plan.”

Teddy was shaking his head before Tommy finished speaking. “It’s not like I’m giving you Billy. I’m just kind of sharing him for a while. Indefinitely. I don’t own him, and we’re both alright with this.”

“What about you?” Tommy asked flatly, trying to prove a point. There was no way it was all that easy, no way Teddy was so comfortable with the idea of a non-monogamous relationship. A day ago, Tommy would have said the same of Billy.

“What do you mean?”

“Does Billy share you?”

“Uh,” Teddy side-eyed him. “Are you hitting on me?”

“God, no! I’m sorry, I wasn’t suggesting—! No, sorry.”

Disappointment was clear on Teddy’s face, shocking Tommy right out of his denial. Tommy leaned forward.

“Is that on the table?” he asked.

-

The next time the three of them got together, robots were trying to take over the world. The fight was a short one, and nearly effortless with the whole group together. Celebratory high-fives were exchanged, and the group lingered among the wreckage of the botched takeover.

Billy, Teddy, and Tommy drifted away from the group to have a bit of privacy. Teddy was the first to speak, and Tommy wished they’d thought to leave everyone behind altogether before talking with each other.

“I want to watch you guys kiss.”

“Dude, no,” Tommy said before he even thought about it, and he let out a sigh of relief when Teddy’s face did not fall, but instead his eyes twinkled a little more amused.

Billy snorted and whacked Teddy in the arm. “Stop it.”

“I wasn’t kidding, I would really like to see that.”

Using only their eyes, Teddy and Billy negotiated how serious they each were and at the end of it Billy was left looking a little uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as Tommy felt.

Billy stepped towards Tommy and didn’t react to Tommy’s instinctual flinch backwards.

“Hey, not here, maybe?” Tommy said as he edged away.

Billy smiled in a way that made Tommy think he wasn’t in on some joke. “C’mon, just one kiss.”

“They’ll see.”

“Do you care?”

“Yes.”

Teddy laughed, and the sound shocked down Tommy’s spine. 

“You’re lying,” Teddy accused impishly.

“Yes,” Tommy repeated, this time thrown off balance. He wanted to—but what did it mean to them—and Tommy was sure he wanted to too much. “Okay,” Tommy agreed, before he could change his mind.

“Ready?” Billy asked. Unnecessarily. Tommy couldn’t stop looking at Billy’s stupid floppy hair and his fingers tingled with the thought of running his hands through it again.

Tommy closed his eyes. Leaned forward.

Billy’s mouth squished against Tommy’s cheek and Teddy burst into gleeful laughter. Tommy was not even surprised. That pretty much summed the relationship up, come to think of it.

-

“Hey, Tommy,” Billy greeted from the other end of the phone line. They hadn’t spoken since the incident with the sentient robots and the bungled kiss, but the world seemed ripe with possibilities.

Tommy immediately broke into a delighted smile, and felt like a four-year-old going to Disney. He wasn’t even contrary enough to try to force down the smile that afternoon. It was a rare day of such unadulterated happiness in Tommy’s life, and he was finished trying to cut it off at the pass. 

“Hey,” Tommy said in response, trying to be cool.

“So, Teddy’s here, and the parentals are gone for the evening. Wanna come over and fool around?”

“Hi, Tommy!” Teddy shouted from the background. Billy laughed, stopping with a choked gasp, and Tommy could only hear swishing air from the phone for a moment. 

“If you want in on the action, you’d better hurry,” Billy said with his voice a couple of notes higher than normal. Tommy clicked off without saying goodbye and pulled his usual magic trick. He bypassed the front door of the apartment building in favor of the window, which had conveniently been left open.

Ruddy light filtered through the window into the apartment, and on the corner of the bed, lit up rosy with sunset, sat the objects of Tommy’s affection. Teddy was hunched over Billy, mouth working against his neck. Billy’s head was thrown back and an open-mouthed smile brightened the heavy arousal clear in his eyes. They made eye contact, Billy and Tommy, and he found that he didn’t want to look away from the vulnerable emotion encapsulated there. There shirts were on the ground next to the bed, and though the top button was undone, both their pants were still in place.

Tommy walked forward and put an self-conscious hand on Teddy’s shoulder, who then straightened up. He smiled and Tommy’s heart quivered in his chest.

"This isn't how I imagined you guys would be together,” Tommy blurted.

Billy said, "Oh, yeah? What did you imagine, then?" at the same time Teddy said, "You imagined what we'd be like together?"

Tommy thought of walking in on them that one time and how the incident had gone unspoken about since. Perhaps they had worried about what questions it would bring to the forefront, along with what frustrations it would expose. His hand inched across Teddy’s shoulder to touch his neck and Teddy did not pull away.

His own desire was a great, irreconcilable thing buried deep inside him. And yet, here they were, the three of them together in a way that Tommy could not understand but could embrace wholeheartedly. It was a happy confusion that greeted him at the door of this relationship.

"I figured you guys would nerd-out in bed. I don't know, ask each other to call you Captain America or something."

“That’s just creepy,” Teddy said with his unwavering, infectious grin.

“Yeah, Tommy, I think you have a problem.” Billy achieved a certain amount of stoic mock-concern, but ruined it with a wandering hand reaching up Tommy’s shirt to rub at his ribs. He leaned into the touch, almost to the point of collapsing on the two of them, before taking a step back for just a moment.

“I’m not really into that ‘other half’ bullshit.” Tommy scuffed a sneaker against the floor. “But, uh. You’re alright. Both of you. You’re cool people. Or whatever.”

 _I haven’t belonged somewhere in a really long time,_ he thought, but did not say.

“Aw, Thomas, you’re blushing,” Billy teased, and grabbed a fistful of Tommy’s shirt to pull him down onto the bed.

**Author's Note:**

>  **End Notes:** There’s a lot of hand waving for why all the characters are super into safe sex. Not to say they wouldn’t be in canon, but they are teenagers, and misinformation or lack of information at that age is rampant. I also tried to make the timeline non-specific so anyone with a basic knowledge of Young Avengers could enjoy it—my original idea was a lot more dependent on being set after Young Avengers Presents (which is where the quote “Tommy—how fast are you exactly?” is taken from), but then I decided to cut out all the plot and make the entire story about sexual negotiation (which I did not make nearly explicit enough) and it was all downhill from there…


End file.
